But this was an error.  A Jesuit priest was sent to the house of the commandant, for a humane effort was thought necessary in order to save the soul of the man whose life was forfeited for the crime of defending his city.  The culprit was found lying in bed.  His wife, a woman of remarkable beauty, with her sister, was in attendance upon him.  The spectacle of those two fair women, nursing a wounded soldier fallen upon the field of honour, might have softened devils with sympathy.  But the Jesuit was closely followed by a band of soldiers, who, notwithstanding the supplications of the women, and the demand of Kloet to be indulged with a soldier’s death, tied a rope round the commandant’s necks dragged him from his bed, and hanged him from his own window.  The Calvinist clergyman, Fosserus of Oppenheim, the deacons of the congregation, two military officers, and—­said Parma—­“forty other rascals,” were murdered in the same way at the same time.  The bodies remained at the window till they were devoured by the flames, which soon consumed the house.  For a vast conflagration, caused none knew whether by accident, by the despair of the inhabitants; by the previous, arrangements of the commandant, by the latest-arrived bands of the besiegers enraged that the Italians and Spaniards had been beforehand with them in the spoils, or—­as Farnese more maturely believed—­by the special agency of the Almighty, offended with the burning of Saint Quirinus,—­now came to complete the horror of the scene.  Three-quarters of the town were at once in a blaze.  The churches, where the affrighted women had been cowering during the sack and slaughter, were soon on fire, and now, amid the crash of falling houses and the uproar of the drunken soldiery, those unhappy victims were seen flitting along the flaming streets; seeking refuge against the fury of the elements in the more horrible cruelty of man.  The fire lasted all day and night, and not one stone would have been left upon another, had not the body of a second saint, saved on a former occasion from the heretics by the piety of a citizen, been fortunately deposited in his house.  At this point the conflagration was stayed—­for the flames refused to consume these holy relics—­but almost the whole of the town was destroyed, while at least four thousand people, citizens and soldiers, had perished by sword or fire.

Three hundred survivors of the garrison took refuge in a tower.  Its base was surrounded, and, after brief parley, they descended as prisoners.  The Prince and Haultepenne attempted in vain to protect them against the fury of the soldiers, and every man of them was instantly put to death.

The next day, Alexander gave orders that the wife and sister of the commandant should be protected—­for they had escaped, as if by miracle, from all the horrors of that day and night—­and sent, under escort, to their friends!  Neusz had nearly ceased to exist, for according to contemporaneous accounts, but eight houses had escaped destruction.